


Hope

by SherlockianGirl14



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Army AU, Human AU, I'm so sorry, M/M, soldier!Gabe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 14:38:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6614524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockianGirl14/pseuds/SherlockianGirl14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam had to keep his faith. He just had to.<br/>Dean had tried to tell him to let go. Even Cas had eventually pulled him aside and told him that Gabriel was gone. But Sam had help on hope, because Gabe would need him to be strong when he came home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope

Sam had to keep his faith. He just had to.  
Dean had tried to tell him to let go. Even Cas had eventually pulled him aside and told him that Gabriel was gone. But Sam had help on hope, because Gabe would need him to be strong when he came home.   
Gabriel would be damaged, Sam knew that much. He wouldn’t be the same, and he would need Sam to be hopeful for him.  
It had been 6 months since Sam had been informed by a regretful pair of strangers at his door that Gabriel was MIA.  
But he was missing. He wasn’t dead, just missing. And he was alive, Sam knew it.  
So he kept the house in perfect order. He washed gabriel’s clothes whenever the closet started to make them smell a little musky. He kept gabriel’s favourite bedsheets on their bed as much as he could. He played Gabriel’s favourite albums whenever he was cleaning. Hell, he logged onto Gabriel’s phone every morning and looked after his sims for him so that he wouldn’t have to spend time cleaning up pee puddles and feeding them up when he came home.  
Everyone he knew told him that he was clinging onto the past, that he needed to let go. But he knew otherwise- he wasn’t holding onto thin air like they thought. He was just making sure that Gabriel would feel at home when he was found.  
When he heard the knock at the door, he knew. It wasn’t Dean hollering through the letterbox, it wasn’t Charlie tapping out a rhythm. Sam hadn’t heard Andy’s car spluttering as it pulled up outside. Kevin always called before he stopped by.  
So that meant that they had found him. He was coming home. Gabriel was coming home!  
He practically bounded to the door, swinging it open so hard it slammed back on its hinges and bounced back, hitting him hard in the side.  
The soldiers before him were grimacing. But they were supposed to be, right? They had to be formal, surely. That didn’t mean anything. Did it?  
“We regret to inform you that your husband has been killed in action. His body was recovered this morning at five oh four local time.”  
“You’re… You’re not serious. I mean, you’re not allowed to do that, are you? You can’t joke like that. Where is he? Is he coming home? Is he hurt?”  
“We’re sorry for your loss, sir.”

Gabriel’s body was shipped home soon after. Sam had to identify him.   
It was Gabriel. But it wasn’t. His skin was too pale, his face too blank. Sam reached over and he opened his eyes despite the protests, and they lacked that spark of mischief.  
This wasn’t his Gabriel.  
His Gabriel was gone.  
Oh god, Gabriel was gone. He couldn’t be, he wasn’t allowed to be!   
He was gone.  
He was dead.

The funeral was respectful. Gabriel would have hated it.  
When Sam went home, he stripped off the bed. He emptied the cupboards. He took Gabriel’s CDs and his phone.  
He headed out to the garden, throwing his clothes and his favourite bedsheets into the metal bin out back. He lit them on fire. He smashed the phone against the floor, he stomped on the CDs. He watched the fire and he cried.  
He regretted it two days later. He wanted to feel something Gabriel. He scoured the house for his clothes and he found one sock of his mixed in with Sam’s own laundry. He wore odd socks for weeks, changing his own but keeping Gabriel’s on.   
He called up Ellen and he quit his job. He lay on the couch and watched old video clips of Gabriel. He wept. He spent full days asleep. He drank.  
Then, one day, he stopped. He headed outside for the first time in weeks, in his one disgusting sock and one fresh, stained old clothes, a beard starting to grow. He drove for the first time in a month, and his car took a while to start.  
He drove to the graveyard. He didn’t remember where Gabriel was buried, he realised. He had been too hurt to notice.  
It took him 20 minutes to find the grave.  
Sitting down in the wet dirt that was already starting to grow over with grass, he stared at the words written, emotionless.  
“Welcome home,” he greeted, his voice cold.


End file.
